Tales of a 57-Year-Old Grandmother Travelling Alone in Latin America

Niña on way to Colca Canyon. Photo by Maximilian Hirschfeld.

With its tales of spectacular waterfalls, lush jungles, harsh deserts, remnants of long lost cultures and man-made wonders, South America has always beckoned to me.

But it wasn’t until 2005, as a 57-year-old grandmother, that I managed to spend six weeks travelling independently in South America. Like many travellers, I had a “shopping list” of places I wanted to visit:  Iguaçu Falls in Brazil, Chile’s Easter Island and Atacama Desert, Sun Island and Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, Cusco, Machu Picchu and Nasca in Peru, the Avenue of Volcanoes in Ecuador and finally the beautiful, volcanic islands of the Galápagos—a long list to do in a very short time.

In most locations, I arranged for a local, knowledgeable guide and driver to take me around. Although places like Machu Picchu, are very popular, I was hoping to be surprised—I wanted to see and experience places tourists don’t normally go to, as well as explore by myself.

Travel guide publications always warn of “dangers and annoyances,” but the best advice often comes from unexpected sources. I learned that this is key. Fellow travellers can teach you a lot.

Friends in Rio showed me how to pay for things without making open displays of money, how to keep small amounts in different places and to move around without attracting too much attention. In northern Chile, I met a man in the Calama airport who gave me priceless information on how to avoid altitude sickness: don’t exert yourself, eat little and often, drink plenty of water and rub metholatum under your nose at night—it helps breathing when asleep.

The departure for each new location was like the start of another adventure. Locals can teach you a wealth of knowledge. On Easter Island, a lovely Rapa Nui woman named  Edith took me to visit her favourite places, including old lava tubes, caves and other sites which most tourists never see.

Patricia, my guide in San Pedro de Atacama, shared insights about ancient Andean Indian beliefs, which provided an excellent foundation for the rest of my trip. I learned about the condor (representing the freedom of the skies), the puma (the ground world) and the snake (water and the underworld)—symbols which I was to see over and over again, expressed in paintings, on pottery, in sculpture and legends.

On Sun Island, Lake Titicaca, I was privileged to watch the local Kallawuaya (fortune teller and native doctor of the northern highlands) as he conducted an offering ceremony to bless Pachamama (Earth Mother) for bringing fertility and prosperity to the lake and its people.

Even in Cusco, I was able to explore off the beaten path and stay safe. On the outskirts of Cusco, I explored the rarely visited Temple of the Moon, built around and inside a natural rock formation. Long before the Inca, these rocky outcrops were considered sacred (or Huaca) and used as places of worship—they are still in use today.

In the Nasca desert I learned of a culture totally built around water, or the lack of it. As well as the famous Nasca Lines, there are mummy cemeteries filled with the remains of women and children sacrificed to bring rain; ancient stone aqueducts that still bring water from the mountains to the parched plains; and pyramids buried in giant mudslides.

On the Galápagos Islands, I learned to swim with turtles, seals and penguins. On land I came face to face with giant wild tortoises, mating and cavorting in a natural mud bath.

Five countries, eleven islands, nineteen planes, three trains, six boats and numerous cars and buses later I landed back in Aberdeen, Scotland, safe and sound. My journey and experiences in South America were priceless and now I have a further list of places that I know I will definitely return to one day as a young, ripe 60 or 70-something.